Ambitus
by Severuslovesme
Summary: You are a surgeon, even though Burke is trying to destroy you. Warning: Dark


**Warning**: This fic is extremely dark, definitely not my usual fluffy angst. It also contains a little bit of self-injury, so consider yourselves warned.

**Notes**: Ambitus means 'edge' in Latin. At least according to the online translator. Hope y'all enjoy! I'd love comments on this because it's quite a departure for me.

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He tells you he loves you, sitting in his hospital room, where you shouldn't be, because you're a surgeon, and you were here once, with the baby, and you were lost then and are not now, because you're going to get your edge back. He tells you he loves you and you throw his chart against the wall. Once you had said that you loved him too.

The love has been spreading through you, like a black poison, until it reached your brain. Seeping through your skin, Burke's love is a disease that you want cured. But your edge will cut it out, remove the stain, excise the sickness.

You are a surgeon, even though Burke is trying to destroy you.

You try to silence the little voice that whispers, over and over, clattering inside your mind until you cannot escape. _Lost your edge lost your edge lost your edge. _You try rattling it out, beating your head against a convenient wall. It continues.

Sometimes the words change, blur together to be something whole, some whole thought that you cannot grasp, cannot catch with your seeking, fluttering hands. _IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou. _It means nothing.That's when you find the bourbon, hoping it will drown the love, drown the weakness, drown everything.

You scare Burke. He has always been uneasy with you, with your logic and your science and your avoidance, it has always seemed alien to him, unnatural. But now he is scared, scared that you will hurt someone, maybe him, maybe yourself. He is cloaked in his fear now; it almost conceals the weakness that taunts you, that finds its mate in you. You laugh.

His room is warm and soft, and it pulls at your skin, trying to get inside you.

Alex says you're losing it, and you don't know what he means. You walk, following your path, one foot in front of the other on the smooth white linoleum, until you reach an OR. Just entering the room makes your skin tingle, makes you feel sharper, more alive.

You count the scalpels, feeling the steel cold and calming in your hand. Smooth, cold, you caress the blade like you would a lover. The edge is keen; scalpels have edges, like you. Because you are sharp again, just like before, and you won't let your edge escape this time. A squeeze – too hard, the blood drips down your arm, the metal slippery within your grasp.

You shake, and you're sitting now, curled on the floor, the scalpel still clutched within your grasp, still cutting into your defiled flesh, but grounding you all the same. Blood drips on the floor. Keeping you here, in the sterile OR, more comforting than even the warmest embrace. Better than Burke's embrace, better than the sex, better than the coffee.

This is your place; you belong here. You will sink into the floor, melt into the walls, turn to vapor and inhabit the air, stay here where everything is hard and unyielding, just like you.

There are people here now, talking to you and about you. Your friends, your mind supplies, but your mind is a traitor now, your mind allows the weakness and then taunts you with it. It was your greatest strength and has become your only enemy. They leave you to your seat on the floor, to your grip on the scalpel, to your grip on reality. The blood has spread; the tiles glisten with it.

It is cool now, like the room. When it came from your hand it was warm, warm like love and Burke. It is better now that the blood is cold.

You are safe here, you are safe here, the air here, sterile, is keeping you alive, keeping you sharp. You take a deep breath. There is no love here, no worthless emotion, creepy-crawly and invading you, destroying you. You're going to be fine, of course everything will be fine, so long as you can just stay here.

_IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou._

You are fading into the tiles, becoming transparent. Burke's love clings to you, smothering you. You cannot escape.

You have tried to go back to who you were, but you have been tainted. You are no longer pure. Your edge is lost; you are lost. You are your edge and you are lost.

The scalpel slips out of your grip and clatters to the floor.

_fin_


End file.
